Marietta City School Board recently met with Student Services Coordinator, Marcella Swaney and Special Education Supervisor, Maureen Sigafoos to learn about special needs programming. Our district has financial troubles, and we are concerned about funding excellent education in our future. According to the most recent fiscal year Special Education Fiscal Accountability Report provided by the State, nearly 22% of our General Fund Budget goes towards special needs programming, and slightly more than 1% goes toward gifted programming.
Special education was mandated by the federal government in 1975 with the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Currently, the program assists children with a variety of diagnoses, including speech & language impairment, autism, learning disability, emotional disturbance, cognitive delay, hearing impairment, multiple disabilities, traumatic brain injury and vision impairment.
Unlike special education, there is no federal mandate to provide gifted education. In Ohio, students are identified as gifted by categories, such as superior cognitive ability, specific academic ability, creative thinking ability and visual or performing arts ability. Specific gifted education plans are left to the districts and their resources.
This week, an opinion article in Newsweek, highlighted the dichotomy that faces school districts. Stephanie Lindsey, a mother who lives in Ohio, writes about the experience of sending her two children to school. Her son (8) has autism, and her daughter (12) is gifted. Her son receives individual attention with a specialist constantly by his side. Her daughter, by contrast, is bored with school; some of the only “gifted” instruction she receives is independent work. As Lindsey notes, in 2008 the No Child Left Behind Act allocated $24.5 billion to special education programs, while only $7.5 million was allocated in federal grants by the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program.
Currently our district serves 542 students with special needs. These children range from ages 3 through 21 as specified by law. Children enter our education system at the age of three through referrals by Help Me Grow, preschools and other sources. Ms. Swaney and Ms. Sigafoos walked us through the process for each child from referral to evaluation to Individual Education Plan. (IEP) Extensive reporting is required in order for our district to receive funding to help defray costs for therapists, aides, supplies, and qualified teachers. Unfortunately, the funding we receive falls far short of the amount needed to provide the services necessary for each child.
One type of testing in our district has identified 736 students, K-12 as gifted, and of these students, currently 63 are being served with gifted programming. Recently the school board learned about national certification of our Project Lead the Way, an innovative program that encourages high school students to learn more about the field of engineering. We also approved a high school curriculum with Advanced Placement classes. Neither of these programs are federal mandates, but we feel strongly that our job is to help all students in our district to excel.
Ms. Swaney and Ms. Sigafoos, helped us learn about the complicated special education system, and we developed a huge respect for our instructors, aides and administrators who navigate this system and provide excellent care and education to students with special needs. Every parent wants the best for his or her child. As a district we must strive to help every child reach his or her potential. In the next few months, the school board looks forward to finalization of Governor Strickland’s education proposal, and we fervently hope our funding will be increased to allow us to not only fund special education adequately, but to help provide better services to our gifted students as well.
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